Hydroponics generally represents the growing of plants in nutrient solutions rather than in natural soil. For many horticultural applications, hydroponics provides significant benefits. For example, greater control may be exerted over the parameters which affect plant growth. Consequently, plant densities, plant growth rates, and product yields may exceed those achievable by cultivating plants in natural soil. Moreover, soil or other environmental conditions in various locations simply prohibit successful cultivation of certain plants. In these situations, such certain plants may be successfully cultivated using hydroponic techniques.
On the other hand, hydroponic techniques conventionally present significant drawbacks. The control of numerous parameters which affect plant performance usually requires a substantial investment in facilities and equipment. Often, hydroponic techniques are practiced indoors, in greenhouses and the like, where plant performance-affecting parameters may be more easily controlled than outdoors. The indoor facility needs, when coupled with elaborate equipment needs, often make such conventional hydroponic techniques prohibitively expensive. In addition, indoor space limitations often restrict the practice of conventional hydroponic techniques to a small scale. Furthermore, elaborate equipment often requires a great amount of human intervention and maintenance in order to achieve successful hydroponic results. Often times, a failure of a single piece of hydroponic equipment results in failure of an entire crop.
Still, in many potential applications some or all of the advantages of hydroponic techniques can be achieved without indoor facilities. Consequently, by practicing hydroponics outdoors many of the cost, space, and other disadvantages are minimized. While outdoor hydroponic systems are known, such conventional outdoor systems fail to adequately answer many of the problems posed by outdoor hydroponics.
For example, in arid climates hydroponics potentially offers great benefits because the successful cultivation of certain desirable plants in arid soil is exceedingly difficult. However, in arid climates evaporation of nutrient solutions becomes a serious problem. Evaporation may take place from a plant itself or directly from hydroponic equipment. Substantial evaporation from hydroponic equipment is especially undesirable because such evaporation may undesirably concentrate remaining nutrient solutions to the detriment of growing plants. Conventional hydroponic equipment fails to adequately retard the effects of evaporation, and consequently, increased maintenance is required to successfully cultivate plants.
In addition, conventional hydroponic equipment fails to adequately protect plant roots and nutrient solutions from insects and other contamination. While this problem is not as severe when equipment is used indoors, it becomes serious when used outdoors. Consequently, constant surveillance and maintenance is required outdoors to guard against infestations and contamination.
Furthermore, many conventional hydroponic devices are elaborate structures which are complicated to build and maintain and are thus undesirably expensive. Accordingly, such equipment is not suitable for outdoor use in applications where the equipment is replicated numerous times for the cultivation of large quantities of plants.